Insight
Cohen: Servant leadership leads founders to do scut work and burn out
“This crappy word, servant leadership, it leads to stuff like this. This is the scut work that needs to be done, and I can do it, so I'll do it so the team doesn't need, doesn't have to do it. That sounds altruistic, and what it does is burn you out because you…”
Assertion Supported
Columbia study: 21 of 22 wealthy exited founders were depressed
“So there was a study, ah, ah, by Columbia Business School of 22 entrepreneurs who all exited their businesses and made ten million or more personally from it. So in other words, success. 21 out of the 22 were depressed after having that success.”
Disclosure
Cohen: Terminated employees have required restraining orders and committed suicide
“What if they get violent, and you have to take out a restraining order? I've had to do that. What if they get depressed afterwards and kill themselves, and you have to explain it to everybody? That has happened to me.”
Insight
Cohen: Founders cannot master non-core skills in months to hire A-players
“The idea that you can become an expert in something important, something that's an entire career for someone else in a few months and then hire an A player. That's, of course, not true. So you're actually a C player at best.”
Insight
Cohen: Believing new hires cannot match founder impact means poor hiring
“Oh, you're so blessed and awesome as a founder that no one could possibly impact the business as much as you? Well, then you're not hiring impactful people, and that's your problem.”
Insight
Cohen: Founders must make emotionally difficult choices throughout to avoid burnout
“I think you have to make emotionally difficult choices, and I'll be very specific, all along the way to build a healthier company and to make you also maybe avoid this fate”
Insight
Cohen: Be General Patton on firing decisions, Mother Teresa on the exit
“Delaying only hurts everybody, everybody, you, the team, the person. Be decisive. Our CEO, Heather Bruner, has a terrific phrase about this, which is, General Patton on the decision, Mother Teresa on the exit. Be decisive, and then be kind.”
Insight
Cohen: Great tech leaders act as editors rather than makers
“What Jobs did is he hired the best designers in the world and then held them to a very high standard, which is what an editor does, not a writer. Not a maker, an editor.”
Assertion Supported
Cohen: WP Engine passed $100M ARR and secured $250M from Silver Lake
“I founded WP Engine in 2010, and like I said, we now, ah, we're, we've passed a hundred million annual revenue, we just got a two hundred and fifty million dollar investment from Silver Lake, and, ah, we're worth more than SmartBear, right?”
Insight
Cohen: Founders will always get the credit without retaining executive titles
“You don't have to hold onto these things like CEO or C whatever or blah, blah, blah for ego because you'll still get the credit. Your ego is going to be fine. You're going to get the ego stuff anyway, which is cool.”
Assertion Partly supported
Cohen: Sold SmartBear in 2007 before its $450M Francisco Partners acquisition
“This is my previous company, SmartBear, and, ah, it was sold just last year to Frisco Partners for four hundred and fifty million dollars, that's awesome, except that I sold it to Insight Partners in 2007, so.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cohen: WP Engine's engineering management is 50% women
“Our executive team is majority female, for example. We have diversity in many areas in the business. Half of our engineering management are women, for example.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Cohen: I have zero direct reports at WP Engine, like HubSpot's Dharmesh
“And now I have zero direct reports, just like Dharmesh at HubSpot.”
